The British government is to launch the "world's largest electric vehicle trial".
Kicking off towards the end of 2009, the £25m project will gauge e-car popularity across the UK by leasing around 340 leccy motors to private drivers and organisations over 12 months.
Several private car manufacturers have already set up leccy …

More money than sense

So, the government plans to pay out £73,000 per leccy vehicle for this trial, on top of all the other £billions of subsidies. These leccys will have to be charged by coal fired power stations as wind power is nonexistant on most days.

Very environmental - burning £50 notes is cheaper. Oh, they already do that don't they!

get themselves onto the rental waiting list

electrics cars and wind...

you ever notice how all the electric cars NEVER seem to have your basic mini wind turbines designed in.

including this most simple thing in their airflow areas as they speed along the road, is such an obvious Doh! why didnt i think of that way to add in that extra charging, to get far greater use of your power cells.

hell with the right design, you might even be able to park up on a windy yet some what sunny day and have one of your turbines and a PV cell on the roof combine to partly recharge while your away working too.

the problem seems to be they must use an eather, or mentality, rather than a many ways to add charging capabilitys.

heres another one, the open car park could have a larger B&Q whole home wind turbines style, and run power cables to the parking spaces (drive in cinema US style for audio disemination), to also add to the singular power generation and create comunial shared power point to all, with micro payments and deductions depending on if you are giving more than taking, byt thats means

Billions?

How many?

So, that money goes where if you have to pay over £500 a month to rent them? I'm not a driver, but I'm fairly sure buying a car with insurance as well would still come to less than that.

If they spend it on some infrastructure, that's fine. But, as previously commented - it'll be bastard project managers and middlemen sucking their portion out before teh money actually goes where needed.

Perhaps it's all put aside for when one of the "quad bike" rated cars has an accident and the passengers get pasted from lack of protection..

the e-Minis look like normal minis with elec, presumably same safety gubbins?

There should be a science & technology quiz to qualify for commenting on this kind of article.

Joseph Gregory - good thinking. If only there was some way of storing the electricity generated on windy days and deploying it on windless days. I've got some initial ideas for something I'm calling a "battery".

Anonymous Cowrd: "you ever notice how all the electric cars NEVER seem to have your basic mini wind turbines designed in"; yes, and for good reason - that's a bloody stupid idea. Put simply, it won't work. The increased resistance to your motion will more than counteract the energy generated by the turbine. To do otherwise would be to create a perpetual motion machine that generates more energy than you put in. Using them whilst stationary to harness any passing wind would technically work, but the amount you could reasonably get with a turbine of a suitable size for putting on a car wouldn't be worth the effort, frankly.

LOL at Alfred ,perpetual motion machine indeed ;)

NOT ONE single person other than you has said one single word about getting anywere near this "perpetual motion machine" than you speak.

clearly you have never have your child stick their plastic windmills out the car window , only to see it get to such high RPM that it disintigrates.

it appears its you thats the "science & technology quiz" failure, but then your probably like those other luddite investors that take an inventors concepts to combine proven tech, push them to one side, then give that consept to some hi brow PR/patent firm that couldnt comprhend the original inventors thinking never mind, fix any problems you might introduce, then label it a failure, the failure isnt the inventor, it you and your luddite cash quarter hungry friends.

the Wole point is to suppliment and somewhat counteract the power drain with a % of onboard power generation feedback Taking into consideration the slightly extra drag you speak of from any such small devices OC even these common ford van circlular revolving air intakes can have a dynamo fitted inside them for instance, a many multi micro device biofeedback power generation that regulates to optimal charging V dischargeing use for a give terrain....

the whole point being to maximise your core power cells discharge/regeneration for a given averge local distance and speed.....

LOL @ AC LOLing at Alfred

People like you make me giggle.

A) You are wrong and Alfred is correct - Putting a wind turbine in your car and expecting it to provide power from the air moving past it whilst you're moving is so idiotic I cannot believe that you used the scientist picture.

Where is the energy that is driving you forward coming from? The battery!

So you are saying that you use the battery, to generate (in a roundabout way) air movement, to turn a turbine to generate electricity to change the battery. You dropped out of school at 15 didn't you? What you describe IS a perpetual motion machine.

The ONLY time you would be actually generating more energy that you are wasting is when you are decelerating without braking. Whilst cruising & accelerating, you are causing an increase in drag, while braking, you are robbing energy from the regenerative brakes.

B) Slightly more amusing is the fact that you referred to Alfred as a Luddite, while in the same post using crappy English, spelling "either" incorrectly, spelling "whole" incorrectly, using the wrong "your / you're", using the wrong "its / it's" failing to capitalise a single sentence, whilst randomly adding capitals in the middle of sentences, and failing to use apostrophes.

I second Alfreds (joking) recommendation that people should have to take a science quiz before posting on here - maybe we wouldn't get luddites like the AC posting their particular brand of drivel to annoy the rest of us then.